[Mobius]

Disclaimer: this is not a "OMG the community is dying" thread.

I was looking at the stats and started thinking about it. The number of page views has been rather constant in the past three years. The number of new accounts created every year is rather regular, with the exception of 2011 with an amazing 19,018 new members (most of which are probably spambots) and 2010 with 2,852 (a prelude to the following year's spambot spree?). Compared to 2011, HLP had some 36% less new topics in 2012 (which had previously been ranging from 5,109 and 6,300. They ended up being only 3,408) and 25% less new posts, with a loss of 30,262 units compared to the previous year (119,638 Vs. 89,376. They were 149,678 in 2008).


So, what happened in 2012? Has HLP experienced any repeated blackouts which have reduced activity? How many campaigns and mods have been released? And yeah, before you ask, I noticed that many modders decided to stop working on their projects and reported it to the public. I don't see it as a bad sign, because IMHO there's really no difference between a dead mod supposedly being active and an actual dead and archived mod. It becomes a problem, however, when there are fewer and fewer new releases making up for it, but I hope this is not the case.

[Black Wolf]

Have you not read Axem's nesletters? There's a lot going on. I'm surprised that we had a quiet 2012 though, given the Diaspora and WCS releases.

[Mobius]

Yeah, I read Axem's newsletters and in fact I don't believe that the community is "dying". I noticed less activity on the forums, and I'm asking why this happened.

[Lorric]

The way the Wing Commander Saga board just fizzled out quickly after the release really surprises me.

[Axem]

I don't know if the forum is using a different way to count new posts or something, because the page views are what you would expect.

Perhaps there's just less to talk about these days. Many of the hosted forums get next to no activity or constructive discussion (except for BP, you show-offs!), which is kind of sad. Other than that, I could only say the quality of everything keeps going up. I'd rather have quality over quantity any day.

[NGTM-1R]

The way the Wing Commander Saga board just fizzled out quickly after the release really surprises me.

They had their own offsite forum they wanted everyone to use instead, which seems kind of dodgy to me.

[An4ximandros]

 I guess they didn't want to lose players to BP, WoD and Diaspora.

 But in all honesty, I believe what happened was simply an awakening of sorts. Mods like Age of Aquarius and Wings of Dawn, which were +90% made by single man teams, showed that modding FSO needed to take some steps up in the quality department.

 I don't think the community is dying, I think it's evolving.

[Axem]

Everyone's working on stuff instead of posting in silly threads!

[General Battuta]

I'm actually gonna point at our installer getting totally ****ed, if the timelines line up

[MatthTheGeek]

I'd rather have quantity over quality any day.

We already have quantity. I'd rather more people played the hundred old campaigns we have, instead of entirely skipping them and then making more of the same old. I feel like headdesking when people want more "classic" campaigns but never play all the ones we already have !

The way the Wing Commander Saga board just fizzled out quickly after the release really surprises me.

They said literally : "HLP isn't our intended public". Good for them.

[karajorma]

I'm pretty sure they meant that the people already on HLP weren't the only people they wanted to play their game. can't say I blame them, it was every bit as true for Diaspora.

[MatthTheGeek]

And I'm pretty sure that's not at all what they meant.

[The E]

Whatever.

Personally, I find that looking at the number of new users, or the number of new topics, or any of those statistical metrics (except possibly unique page views) tells you very little about the health of a community. HLP is output-oriented, much more like one of those "Nexus" sites that cater to the needs of the modders rather than the players.

It's by the output we should judge ourselves, and I think that due to the overall rise in quality we've seen over the past few years, people are more careful with regards to what they put out. It's like the frantic creativity of the early days has given way to a more deliberate, more considered pace, which is a development I find hard to evaluate in one way or another. Pros and Cons, you know.

Personally, I think that with the rising interest in space sims (Star Citizen, Strike Suit Zero.....), it is only natural that we as a rather FS-centric site may be losing a bit of traffic to those newer, flashier titles.

[TrashMan]

We all know the real reason guys...
I haven't been visiting any of the boards except gaming discussion for months. Without my glorious presence, this was inevitable.

[BengalTiger]

Does the broken installer correlate with the decrease in interest with HLP?

[The E]

Installer (what you mean) != Launcher

Personally, I am pretty sure that we've lost a few people because our install procedures aren't as straightforward as they could be.

[BengalTiger]

Post corrected, thanks.

[Lorric]

One thing I had noticed is that the Wing Commander Saga people stopped talking on their own board. But even if they disappeared, I would have thought something would have happened, Wing Commander isn't some obscure little thing, and I would have thought something would have sprung up anyway. Oh well, Deathsnake I think it is has something in the works.

[mjn.mixael]

*sigh*

Another one of these threads, huh?

I think I know how best to answer your question.

What happened to HLP (and the FreeSpace community in general) in 2012?

Well, I looked through your recent posts list. Looks like you missed 2012 completely.

Ooops. Yeah, it's tough to judge a community when you leave it. But thanks for trying!

Here's how you can tell what's been going on rather than making these sort of threads again...

Newsletter #1
Newsletter #2
Newsletter #3

Now, as to the stats.

New topics from 2009 - 2011 are pretty much the same.. new posts has come down a bit.
New Members (skipping 2011 cause wut... that stat makes no sense), 2012 saw more new members than 2009 and 2008. 2010 saw a jump, who knows why.
Most online.. is similar to 2011 and waaaaay up from 2010 and previous.
Page views is up from 2005 to 2012.
I've ignored 2013 cause it's incomplete.

What are we worried about now? Looks to me like pretty average stats fluctuation. If anything, people are creating/playing/waiting/watching more and just talking less. But a lot of people are still visiting. Many people are still visiting regularly.. and (as the Newsletters clearly highlight) people are still creating A LOT of stuff. So I still have no idea where these threads keep coming from...

[Mobius]

Excuse me mixael, but ? I made it clear in the very first post that this wasn't a "HLP is dying!!1!" thread. I haven't been pessimistic so far and all posts in this thread seem to point to various understandable reasons why forum activity has apparently reduced without influencing progress on mods. Where do you see this attempt to "judge the community"?